UK gas bills could rise 17% this year, with the price increase reportedly being “blamed on Russian supplier Gazprom”. Gazprom’s moves to tap Nigeria’s huge energy reserves “will send shivers through western governments already concerned about a shortage of global gas supplies.” Two key Russian export projects, the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean oil pipeline controlled by Transneft and Gazprom’s Nord Stream pipeline, are facing delays and increased costs. Russia, “the country that defaulted on its international bonds in the late 1990s,” now has $425 billion of gold and currency reserves and a $150 billion stabilization fund, built from oil and gas wealth. “Putin’s whole ethos is that if Russia can’t be a military super-power, it can project economic power. The energy weapon is not the all-encompassing thing Putin thinks it is, and in some ways Russia needs Europe more than Europe needs Russia,” said one analyst.